


Rien n'est éternel

by mystery_deer



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Bad Communication, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Relationship Issues, a lot of emotions and some of them are good (but not many), he is not important just ignore him shh, there's an oc but he's just there for Kevin to talk at
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2020-10-27 07:20:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20756507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mystery_deer/pseuds/mystery_deer
Summary: "Kevin and Holt get in a fight before Paris that almost ends their relationship and both of them are hurtin REAL bad" - Tumblr promptSo this is that.I liked how this prompt turned out so I'll share it here too!





	1. Chapter 1

Kevin stares out his window at the streets of Paris and plays with the ring on his finger. The phone has been ringing, he neglects it. He wears a robe despite it being nowhere near time to sleep. When he’s not playing with the ring he runs his finger along the threads he knows to be initials. He thinks of Raymond and then gets up, as if the memory is hot to the touch. As if he can be burned. 

Across the country Raymond holds the phone to his ear and waits. His heart pounds. Why. Why why why does this happen why does this always happen? Their conversation is so cold these days, they move around each other as if avoiding something in the middle of them and it’s tiring. It’s so draining and it’s never felt like this before. 

He feels that they’re on the precipice of something deep and dark and final. He feels that he’s digging his heels in and screaming and grasping onto Kevin for dear life, grasping onto his Dear his life whose voice on the other end of the phone has been so distant lately. It’s been so distant lately and while his feet wander the streets of Paris his eyes have been wandering too. His body leaning over the edge and ready to plummet.  
Raymond wasn’t ready to plummet.

Kevin feels a short-lived relief when the phone stops ringing. He feels at once that he wants it to ring again immediately and that he never wants to ring again. He would be angry at both options. He would be annoyed at Raymond for badgering him and he would be annoyed at Raymond for giving up so easily. He puts his head in his hands. His ring presses against his skin and he takes it off, just for a moment, just to breathe.

He thinks of the Professor he eats lunch with during his breaks. Thinks of how perfect his french is and how he says Kevin’s name with something injected into it that isn’t a bone-deep tiredness or a carefulcareful tiptoe around something unnamed. He thinks about how that Professor invited him to go out to dinner and he went and he didn’t tell Raymond because.  
Because.  
He knew that he’d get angry.  
That he’d be-  
be  
Irrational about it.

He pours water into the kettle and lets it boil as guilt fills him, interchangeable from blood. He knows why he didn’t tell Raymond. He knows what the unnamed something is.  
He’s so tired, he’s been so tired since…  
He thought going to Paris would be good for him. For them. It’s given them nothing but space and they’ve filled the space with vitriol.

The kettle shrieks and the phone rings. Kevin stands in his kitchen and wraps his arms tighter around himself.

Raymond calls again after taking a lap around the house. He wants nothing more than to talk to Kevin and nothing less than to talk to Kevin. He hates him for not picking up and he’s terrified that he will. He’s full of contradictions and he hates it he hates himself. 

The thought hardens and lodges itself into his chest, right next to his heart so that every beat is painful.

He hates himself.  
Kevin hates him too. Perhaps everyone in the world hates him.  
Kevin is his-

He drops the phone on the table and does another lap, head in his hands as he tries his best to soothe his stinging eyes. His chest is so full of nothing. It’s a struggle to breathe through all the nothing. 

He worries that Kevin will find someone in Paris who is better than him. He pictures him arm in arm with some hot-shot museum curator or art gallery owner who will wax poetic about long-dead legends and marvel over ashes over ashes over it’s over dust it’s over and he worries that Kevin will meet him at the airport and tell him that-

He snatches the phone and cradles it to his ear. Still ringing.

Kevin stands with his arms wrapped tight around himself until the noise is unbearable and then he screams, adding himself to the chaos to the noise to the universe until his throat is sore and he can taste iron when he swallows. The phone stops ringing and he turns off the flame, shakily pouring the water into a mug. 

He places a tea bag into it and adds honey, waits for it to cool. He swallows. He traces the initials on his robe. RJH. He wonders if divorces are less messy when you have different last names and the thought feels like a gunshot. It feels like stubbing a toe you stubbed yesterday and he begins to push his mug forward.

He pushes it further and further and further and further until it’s a little less than halfway off the counter and just before it teeters over the silence is again broken by the ringing of the phone.

He stares straight ahead for a moment before retracting his hand, leaving the mug in suspense and walking over towards the phone. He looks at it, lets it ring.  
One mississippi  
Two mississippi  
Three mississippi  
Four-

“Hello?”  
“…”  
“Hello?”  
“Kevin?” Raymond asks, surprised. “I’ve been calling you.”  
“I just got in.” Kevin lies, curling the cord around his ringless finger. “How has your day been?”  
“Fine, and yours?”  
“Fine.”

Silence.

“Raymond I’m sorry but I’m quite tired and...quite busy.”  
“Mm.”  
“I need to get going.”  
“I see. Well.”  
“I love you.”

Kevin blinks as he’s met with dial tone instead of a reply and he lets the phone drop back into its cradle. He looks across the room at the counter with his steaming mug and his abandoned ring and he closes his eyes instead because the entire scene is broken and too ugly to bear. He wraps the robe around him and breathes.

Across the country Raymond storms into the garden with a pair of shears and blindly hacks at Kevin’s rose bush. He glares at the petals laying at his feet before his eyes soften and mist and finally spill over with tears as he drops the shears and drops to the floor, sobbing and rocking with grief.


	2. Rien ne reste pareil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin gets drunk and thinks about poetry. And Raymond, always Raymond.

Kevin woke up a minute before his alarm clock as usual and shut it off with a precise click of his finger. He is very tired, he did not sleep well. He kept dreaming that Raymond was speaking to him in a language he didn’t understand. They were in an office, sitting across from one another. Kevin’s job was to translate what Raymond was saying to someone, to write it down in English but he couldn’t grasp a single word. The only other dream he had was of his grandfather giving him a comically large novelty eraser that had ‘FOR REALLY BIG MISTAKES’ printed across it. Both were troublingly rife with symbolism. He preferred his dreams to be mundane or nonexistent. 

A few days ago Raymond had called him and said he wasn’t coming to Paris.  
“I believe Peralta and the others - though mostly Peralta, might burn down the house.”  
“Then why did you place them in charge of the house?”  
“It seemed like a good idea at the time. Santiago is-”  
“Not our regular house sitter. I gave you a number for Isadora-”  
“Isadora is an old crow who-”  
“Don’t interrupt me-”  
“-You interrupted me first!”

A beat of tense silence. Kevin can hear cars and Gina in the background.  
He feels frustration and anger climbing up his chest.

“Well, this has been a thoroughly unproductive conversation.” Raymond says.  
Kevin feels the frustration-anger cool into something dagger-sharp, painful. 

“...Are you giving me a treatment to silence? How mature of you. I never-”  
“I am glad you’ve decided to cancel your trip, Raymond.” Kevin hissed, nails digging into the meat of his own palm. “I don’t believe I would enjoy being in your company right now. In fact, I can’t imagine myself enjoying your company in the foreseeable future. Goodbye.”

He had hung up the phone without giving his husband a chance to respond.  
It was very childish.  
It felt good.  
It felt awful.

He had accepted an invitation from a fellow professor to get lunch.  
Both Ferdinand and Raymond had roots in ‘protection’  
Kevin’s name was boring. Gentle, kind, handsome.  
He had joked to Ferdinand that he was none of the three and the other man had said;  
_“Now I don’t think that’s true.”_ and smiled at him over the rim of his too-sweet coffee.  
Raymond liked his black. He liked to savour the bitter taste.  
Kevin drank tea.

When he was a teenager his mother had gone through a phase where she believed she had a link to something mystical and insisted on reading his and Martin’s tea leaves. She had told him his future wife’s name would be Regina. 

<“I heard your husband will be visiting soon?”> Ferdinand asked, stirring his coffee. He drank coffee with every meal it seemed and Kevin thought about how bad that would be for his teeth.  
<“He might not be able to make it, he works a lot.”> Ferdinand thew a hand up in an expression that startled Kevin. 

<“Bastard!”> He exclaimed, and then in english; “Come, Waiter? Yes. A bottle of wine. We’re drinking a man under the table.” 

“To drink someone under the table is to best them in a competitive drinking game.” Kevin said, looking off into the distance. The sun was high in the sky. It was a beautiful day. “I suppose because the other participant would be too drunk to stand or sit.”

“Then we’ll drink our cares away hm? That’s what I meant. Though we can hide under the table too if you want.” Kevin smiled as Ferdinand popped the cork of their wine and offered the bottle towards him. He watched his glass fill up with a color halfway between red and purple. Deep, rich, intoxicating.  
<“Let’s just see how the evening progresses vis a vis tables and being under them.”>  
<“Evening? It’s barely after noon. And by that I mean it’s 12:08.”>  
<”As I said.”>

The name Raymond originated from Raginmund or Reginmund. Ragin and Regin meaning ‘counsel’ in old german. Regin was the gothic spelling. His mother had gotten fairly close, a few centuries off.

Ferdinand was littered with buzzwords. Travel, courage, bravery. He again felt his own blandness in comparison. (Not)Gentle, (Nicht)handsome, (Ne pas)kind.

They continued drinking as they floated out of their seats and winded through the cobblestoned streets. Kevin couldn’t remember being so drunk, couldn’t remember how he’d gotten from here to there to there to there. He was on the ground, then he was on a wall, then he was in the middle of a blanket of stars. No - staring up at the sky. Yes, both feet firmly on the ground.  
<“Where are you staying?”> Ferdinand asked, face so close- holding him up?  
“I don’t want to be home, what if he calls?”  
“Who?”  
“Ray.” The sky was so large. Too large. Overwhelmingly large. “Raymond.” He teetered.

All the stars vanished, leaving only darkness.  
People had been looking at the sky and finding shapes in it for as long as there had been humans and sky and coherent thought. Kevin looked for shapes in the pitch black.  
He couldn’t think of anything romantic, he was nowhere near any abbeys.  
He was a neoclassical man, he appreciated simplicity in geometric forms.

Two circles made eyes.  
A line for a smile.  
Raymond. 

_“I wandered lonely as a cloud  
That floats on high o’er vales and hills.”_ Raymond’s voice comes floating in. He had read that poem to him a few years ago. There was no occasion, he had just selected it from a book of Wordsworth’s poetry that he’d received from a friend. 

_"When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden daffodils…”_ Kevin remembered closing his eyes and placing a hand on Raymond’s chest. Feeling the tired rumble of his voice and the beat of his heart. 

Kevin had read a poem the night before from John Dryden. The words were...the words were...the words…

”Men are but children of a larger growth; Our appetites are apt to change as theirs.”_ Ferdinand’s voice. Booming, brilliant, drowning out Raymond’s sleep-soft voice. Drowning out the two of them in bed together. Drowning out everything but him and Kevin in the dark space._

_ _"AND FULL AS CRAVING TOO, AND FULL AS VAIN.”__

Kevin woke up with a silent start, sitting up so fast it nearly made him retch. He was on a bed, though not under any blankets, and was wearing what he had been that afternoon sans shoes.  
He cradled his head in his hands, shutting his eyes against the light. Everything ached. He couldn’t remember his dream or half the day...night? He squinted his eyes to check the time. Yes, it was the next day. 

He slowly lied back down and looked at the ceiling, a familiar ceiling. He was home.  
He reached out to his side and was relieved but not surprised to find that he was alone.  
He continued lying in bed for half an hour before thirst drove him to the kitchen where he drank two bottles of water and then tried not to retch again. 

_ ‘You have one new message.’  
_Beep._  
“Kevin, this is me, Raymond. Plans have changed, I am now on a flight to Paris. If you are not here to greet me - which seems very likely given our last conversation and the fact that you will not answer your phone - then I will find your residence myself.”  
_Beep._ _

__

__

Kevin thought about Raymond coming.  
Kevin made tea and hung his aching head over it, wanting the heat to soothe him somehow. 

**A Conversation Kevin Does Not and Will Not Remember**  
“My husband and I aren’t having problems.”  
“I didn’t say you were?”  
“You implied it.”  
“You’re very drunk. What floor did you say?”  
“Eight. Eighth.”  
<“Of course there’s no elevator!”>  
<“There is it’s just...out...not...not doing work.”>  
<”What a slacker. Fire it immediately.”> 

Laughter from the both of them as they hobble up the stairs, Ferdinand only slightly less drunk than Kevin. 

<“I love Raymond, I don’t know what’s wrong with us.”>  
<“Are you having a fight?”>  
<“I don’t know what we’re having. We’re...continually disagreeing with both of us.”>  
<“Your grasp on French is very loosened as soon as you get a little wine in you Professor.”>  
<“A great lot of things might very well have.”> 

They are in Kevin’s apartment which Kevin unlocked without incident. Ferdinand pours them each a glass of water and hands one to Kevin. 

"I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel so childish and angry and I don’t know why. Every time I try to talk about it I can’t talk- say it right.” 

Kevin remembers the phone call with Raymond, telling him he didn’t want to see or speak to him. He can picture Raymond’s face, desperately trying to remain stoic and unhurt but there would be that little bit of vulnerability and pain that was always there for Kevin to see. Only Kevin. 

_ Kevin remembers a conversation with Raymond a few weeks after being told that he was being transferred to public relations. Raymond had come up behind him while he was revising a paper and wrapped his arms around Kevin’s shoulders, resting his head in the crook of his neck. _“I’m sorry, I’ve failed again.”_  
_“I’m sorry, I’m lost again.”_  
_“I’m sorry, Kevin.”_  
_“I’m sorry.”_ _

He’d wanted so badly to help him, that’s all he ever wanted to do. But Raymond didn’t want help. 

_“I don’t require your platitudes.”_ Raymond said, refusing to look his husband in the eye.  
_“I don’t need your pity.”_ Kevin wanted to tear his hair out and scream that it wasn’t pity, that he wanted to help, that he would be able to help if Raymond would just _talk_ to him instead of holding all his hurt to his chest and resenting Kevin for not being able to stop him. 

“I’ve been offered a job to teach at the Sorbonne.”  
“How wonderful.”  
“I’m going.”  
“Fine, I wish you all the best.”  
“Thank you, you’ll excuse me.”  
“How couldn’t I?” Raymond muttered, needing the last word. 

Kevin had told Ferdinand these things in bits and pieces, starting and stopping. He wished he were a more passionate or emotional man like Raymond. Raymond could usually cajole him out of any mood that took him but Kevin could not do the same. Raymond was thoroughly kidnapped by whatever mood had him, held prisoner. Kevin could do nothing. Was that nothing? Was he not doing enough? 

_Am I not doing enough or will nothing ever be enough for him?_  
Cozner is so close to Cozenage. Someone had told him that, an ex? A friend?  
Ferdinand had listened and spoke and comforted and then saw him to bed, leaving with a cheery goodbye. 

_<“I hope you two work it out, it seems like you really love him.”>_

**Present Time**  
Kevin finished his tea and took an aspirin, shrugging on his coat and taking a taxi to the airport. The driver kept asking him questions about his red hair and then talking about his wife. Kevin closed his eyes against this, wishing the world had a mute button. His head pounded. 

When he saw Raymond again his heart picked up a little. He looked as he knew he would, it was comforting and terrifying. Nothing had changed. 

“Hello, Kevin. I am glad you took the time out of your day to see me.” Raymond snarked. 

“I would not leave you alone here.” He said, snatching one of the suitcases out of his hand. 

Raymond’s tone softened. “I...yes. You wouldn’t. I know.”  
Kevin stood opposite him, not knowing what to do. He would normally take his hand or kiss him after so long an absence. 

“Are you hungry? I know that airplane food can be overpriced.”  
“Marginally.”  
“Overpriced?”  
“I am marginally hungry.”  
“I’ll make you something, my apartment isn’t far from here.”  
“Thank you.”  
“You’re welcome." 

They picked up a box of fresh croissants on the way home (“Buying food is not the same as making it.”) and made a pot of coffee to go with it (“I don’t know if this will be up to your standards Raymond but beggars can’t be choosers.”) 

They didn’t talk about much of anything. Raymond seemed hesitant to speak and Kevin was unwilling to. 

“Have you met anyone to spend time with?”  
“I have met many people to spend time with, yes.”  
“Why are you being so difficult?”  
“Why are you being so snappy?” 

Neither of them could answer either question so instead they sat on opposite ends of the apartment and entered their own separate worlds. Kevin read through papers and Raymond watched television.  
Thoroughly alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kevin: I'm not romantic or emotional at all -thinks about poetry, thinks about poetry, thinks about his husband-  
Also, I am not a classics professor but I am a literature major so I'm using all of that energy here


	3. Avec l'ancien

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raymond thinks about Kevin and makes a decision.

Raymond was failing miserably.  
He had promised himself that he would not fight with Kevin when they were reunited and yet here they were, not two hours together and already seething.

This was his worst nightmare.  
This was what he’d lay awake at night terrified for.  
It was so easy, that was the worst part. It was chillingly easy to argue.

_“I’m afraid that if I go to Paris...and we fight…”_

He had failed, he was a failure. In everything he was a failure.  
At least he could say he had a stellar work-life balance. Both were up in flames.  
He smiled ruefully at his joke and continued watching the screen. A cat competition. He was not particularly fond of cats.

His mother had had a cat when he was a child, she’d had it since before he was born. Kevin was slightly cattish in his demeanor, he thought. People had said so, anyway.

The cat, Slyvester (his mother named him after a cartoon, fitting.) Would come up to him when he was reading or playing and rub against his leg, then skitter off under any available shelter when he reached down to pet him. A few minutes later Sylvester would meow and creep closer, the cycle beginning again.

Similarly, Kevin would run from any affection or vulnerability Raymond showed.  
He remembered one instance where, a while after being caught and thrown into public relations once again, he had gone to Kevin for comfort.

He did not know how to ask for comfort from Kevin. Kevin never asked for comfort, only passively received it if offered. Perhaps he was not catlike after all.  
“I am a failure.” He’d settled on, hugging his husband. “I’m sorry.”

Kevin had been quiet a moment before patting one of his hands and responding with something tame. “You’re not a failure.” Or something along those lines before going back to work.

Raymond wondered if him not being a failure in Kevin’s eyes was more for Kevin’s benefit or his. Wondered if Kevin truly wanted to tell him that he wasn’t or _had_ to in order not to have a failure for a husband.

A brilliant man who never needed comfort, who taught at the Sorbonne in his free time and Columbia during work hours did not need Raymond following him around like a puppy.

Didn’t _deserve_ to have Raymond following him around, he thought in his worst moments.  
Didn’t deserve to have the _burden_ of Raymond hanging over him.

“Raymond.” Kevin had said one day, taking both his hands in his. “Please, tell me what’s wrong.”

He had wanted to say that everything was wrong. That he felt helpless, at the whim of a system that would never allow him to succeed. That all of his work, all of his years of trying were wasted. He wanted to say that he felt like a loser, he felt like nothing, he felt so sad and angry and purposeless that he wanted to sleep forever or quit or take the next plane to vegas and have loan sharks harvest his organs.  
He wanted Kevin to hold him.  
He wanted Kevin to tell him he loved him and he wanted to know he meant it.  
Selfish. That was so selfish of him.

“Nothing is wrong.” He’d said, avoiding his eye and carefully not using a contraction. “Nothing at all.” 

Kevin had told him he was going to Paris a week after.  
His nightmares quickly rearranged themselves to account for this latest change.

_“Kevin is going to find someone in Paris.”_ A voice very similar to his own said.  
_“Not necessarily a romantic partner, but someone. Someone who is so much less work than you. Someone who is easier to love.”_

He was not making himself easy to love despite this fear, in fact it only seemed to make him more obstinate. The more he thought about how awful he was being the worse he felt and the worse he felt the more he wanted to hide his feelings from Kevin, now so blown out of proportion they would surely be unrecognizable to his husband. Silly. Foolish.

He felt like he had broken a faucet and was trying desperately to fix it as it flooded out into the hall while Kevin, outside the bathroom, was asking him (angrier and angrier) to come mop the floor. _“Why is it so hard to mop the floor?”_

The entire flight to Paris he had promised himself that he would be adjustable, easy-going, agreeable. Then the moment he’d seen Kevin he’d started a fight.

_It felt good._ A horrible part of him said. _It’s proof, it’s proof that you were right. You’re a burden on him._

He shut off the television.

“Kevin?”  
“Yes?”  
“I…” He paused. “Nevermind.” Before his husband could respond he rushed into the bathroom and ran water over his face. This wasn’t working. Being agreeable wasn’t working. The way things were wasn’t working.

When Raymond had been working his way up the ranks it was achievement after achievement even if it took a long while. There was always something to work towards, more ground to gain even if only an inch. Going from the high of Captain to the hell of public relations was a new kind of setback. He had felt like he’d finally done it, finally made it to the top of the mountain only to be kicked back down. He was Sisyphus. He was the damn rock.

He remembered Kevin reading him a poem by John Dryden one day. Kevin had a wonderful reading voice, articulate and piercing. _“When I consider life, ‘tis all a cheat; Yet, fooled with hope, men favour the deceit.”_ Nothing would get better unless he made it better, unless he worked for it. He was tired of working on his professional life.

He glanced towards the door.  
_“Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay; Tomorrow’s falser than the former day;  
Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blessed with some new joys, cuts off what we possessed. ”_

He opened the door and walked over to where Kevin was sitting, looking through a small stack of papers. 

Peralta and Santiago thought they were the best couple they knew. 

Peralta’s judgment was undoubtedly very clouded due to his severe father issues and idealization of him as a person. Perhaps Kevin even more so since Kevin was not often around to chastise him. Was Kevin the fun parent? He would hate that. It made Raymond laugh softly, the thought of Kevin as a father.

“What is so amusing?” Kevin asked, clearly annoyed at being stood over silently. Not a good start.

Raymond took a breath. Santiago was much more reliable. The idealization was still there (_very much_ still there) but he was certain she would not lie to him. However, did she even know Kevin? He could not recall them interacting positively, couldn’t recall her seeing them together. How would she know they were the perfect couple? 

“Nothing. I apologize.” 

Neither of them were trustworthy. He himself was not trustworthy. He should trust nothing, no one. He should leave, he should go back to New York and rot in a gutter somewhere. He should work in public relations and spend the rest of his life deciding what the new color of subway tile would be. He should let Kevin leave him.

But.

Kevin looked up at him and he saw how tired he was. He saw all at once how much the strain on their relationship had been affecting him too. Maybe he was not the only one awake all those nights, worrying and half-dreaming about the two of them. Maybe he was not the only one who thought all of this was his fault somehow. 

The thought of Kevin blaming himself, Kevin lying awake at night, Kevin worrying if he was enough for Raymond, nearly drove him to tears.

“No. It is not nothing.” He admitted, taking Kevin’s hand. “We need to talk.” Kevin nodded, and just like that they were going to talk. 

They each felt a foreboding feeling. This would be the make or break of everything, they were sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raymond likens Kevin's behaviour to the cat's but isn't he acting more like the cat?  
I'm afraid I made Raymond's thought process a bit too muddy here when I was trying to reflect his own inability to fully grasp what's wrong. It's a vicious cycle sort of deal...


End file.
